


Time to Pay the Pied Piper

by Clara_Watson



Category: Ranger's Apprentice - John Flanagan
Genre: Baby Gilan, I'm not sorry, but he's still a dad, gilan has anxiety, halt is so ready for his apprentice to grow up and leave, he steals children, krystal has depression, krystal is never appropriate, krystal is not here for it, there's the pied piper
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 18:36:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13082895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clara_Watson/pseuds/Clara_Watson
Summary: Krystal couldn't care less about Choosing Day, the King's rules, or the King's Rangers. But when kids begin going missing across Araluen she teams up with Gilan, apprentice to the great Ranger Halt. Their sole goal is to get the children back, and nothing else, but friendship seems to be inevitable.





	1. Prologue

Krystal wasn’t a fan of celebrating Choosing Day. She found the whole ritual to be outdated and unfair to all the villagers. She helped with baking the food this year, she was fourteen and huffed around Master Chubb’s kitchen all day; knowing that learning how to make the world’s most luxurious soups and bake pastries was all going to be for nothing. There was no way she could recreate a single thing she’d made that day at her own home.

When night fell she didn’t stay to help serve. She ripped the net out of her hair and dropped it on the path outside, her black hair swooping down to her waist. She thought about going home to sleep, instead she bypassed the celebrations and climbed the largest oak tree she could find. The branches were itchy underneath her hands, but she was sick of listening to their cheerful voices. When their voices faded into a dull roar she straddled the branch and looked over the darkened ground as if it held the answers to all the worlds secrets.

An owl landed next to her, it’s oversized eyes constantly watching her as its neck rotated three-hundred-and-sixty degrees. Krystal scowled at it and hissed, extending her fingers like claws. It hooted and took flight, the feathers brushing against her face as they extended. She hated that the owl had everything together, that it just flew wherever it wanted to go and never had to stop and respond to the needs of anyone else.

The torches died and the Chosen (evidently it was all of them) went back to the Ward’s wing of the castle and slipped into their warms beds. There were seven of them this year. A part of Krystal wished she’d be among them in two years, but knew that if her parents were to die she’d find herself working on someone else’s farm. She didn’t think that was fair. She wanted to fight with the knights, to learn how to wield a sword and put fear into the hearts of men. Ma said she couldn’t fight with the knights--that was a man’s job. Her job was to stay on the family farm, get married and have babies.

Okay, maybe Ma didn’t quite phrase it like that, but it was the way 14-year-old Krystal took it. She didn’t take many things in a positive way.

She climbed down the tree before the torches went out in Castle Redmount; the guard’s torches hadn’t been replaced so it wasn’t the middle of the night yet. The full moon lit her path home as she skipped and jumped, pretending to be a fairy. Everyone told her she was too old for such fanciful things, but she found great solace in it.

‘You should be in your house.’

The gruff voice shook Krystal to her core, she stopped her dancing and turned, the way the ballerinas from Gallica did, only less graceful. The man frowning at her was a little shorter than she was, and he wore his hood although the night would have hidden his facial features well enough.

‘Ma says we don’t have to wear hoods at night,’ she hadn’t expected it to be so sarcastic, but refused to take it back when it was, adding a curtsy on the end as the cherry on top.

‘He just wants you to be safe,’ the voice didn’t come from the man, or from Krystal, but rather the boy that had been hiding behind the man with hood, ‘there’s a lot of nasty people out here.’

Krystal raised her hand and pointed at her finger at the castle, ‘if you’re looking for nasty people you should look in there.’

She waited for them to look at the castle, and possible scowl at each other behind their hoods before turning to reprimand her. When they did look at the castle she took off, running down the path until she got to her house.

She pulled her curtain door shut, separating her room from the rest of the house, and huddled into bed. She didn’t take her shoes off, or shed her skirts and place them on the end of her bed. She wasn’t sure who she’d spoken to, but they had a sort of eerie feel to them. Ma said the Rangers had a knack for black magic, and being able to conjure themselves out of thin air. Krystal had never quite believed the stories (after all, a King is a King, not a man who hands out magic powers) but a part of her that night believed that Rangers existed in all places at all times, and feared waking to one at the foot of her bed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a wolf circling the farms of Redmount. Krystal's going to get it before anyone gets seriously hurt. [Gilan is a (teenage) child.]

There were reports of a wolf living in the outskirts of town.

No one was willing to kill it, there was a rumour that the wolf had been conjured by the Ranger Halt during a training exercise for his Apprentice. Krystal didn’t have time for the stories of black magic that circulated town. She didn’t really have time for town all together anyway. Her friend, Benji, had said he’d seen it take an entire flock of sheep in broad daylight.

‘I’ve heard it’s a werewolf,’ Casey leant across the counter, her shirt no longer doing the job of holding her bosom in place.

Krystal snatched her materials from the counter and smiled sourly, ‘it ain’t a full moon, Case.’

‘Yeah, but,’

Krystal dropped a golden coin on the counter, ‘no buts. Fix your shirt.’ She pushed the door open with her back and waved her finger at Casey, ‘see you tomorrow, yeah?’

Casey nodded absentmindedly as she took her next customer, forgetting about Krystal immediately. 

Krystal checked her horse--borrowed from her neighbour--and scrubbed at its mane. Her bow was nestled at the back of her saddle, her quiver safely placed in the crease on her back. She wasn’t sure she knew how to shoot it properly (she’d taught herself after Ma died), but her bow was trustworthy and her arrows always flew straight. She wouldn’t trust anything else when she came face to face with an animal, not even Pa’s sword for slaughtering the pigs.

Theresa’s farm was the one that lost the flock. Krystal had been out there often, practically knew the place like the back of her hand. Theresa had two sons and a daughter, all under six. Krystal came to the conclusion that if the wolf would take sheep under the sun, then it was only a matter of time before the children were next.

Seeing as no one was willing to face the “werewolf” that was her job now.

When she dismounted at Kindleberry Farm (for some reason Theresa wouldn’t change the name, even though her husband had left her years ago) she was greeted by three little munchkins that attached themselves to her legs and spoke excitedly about the big dog that came and took all their sheep. They hadn’t quite grasped the seriousness of the situation; being children and all.

‘Where’s Ma?’ she asked loud enough that her voice would carry into the house.

Theresa rushed outside, rebuking her children and telling them to get back inside. Masie was the last one to do as she was told, looking longingly at the patch of flowers that were beginning to grow. She wanted desperately to play in them and make flower crowns. Krystal promised to when she came back.

‘You shouldn’t let them outside on their own, Therese.’ She gestured towards the trees that were a great hiding spot for the wolf, ‘with the wolf and everything.’

‘I can hardly keep them inside all day.’

‘You could teach them to write.’

‘Why would they need to write?’

Krystal gave up and plucked her bow off the back of her saddle, passing a satchel to Theresa. ‘I brought the material, if you wanted to make Maisie a new dress.’

‘I could make you one.’ Theresa said.

Krystal mocked vomiting and shook her head. She was waiting for her current one to disintegrate so she could wear her father’s old uniform. He had been a small man, but somehow Krystal fit into all his clothing. She found pants much more satisfying anyway. 

She thought about taking her borrowed horse into the woods, but then she couldn’t afford to replace it. She waved to the window where she knew Maisie was watching and straightened her shoulders, heading into the tree line. 

Krystal didn’t know the first thing about tracking animals, she just follow her gut. Today she had no gut to follow. She stopped when she couldn’t see the house anymore and lowered her weapons to the ground, her body following the action and sitting cross legged on the leafy floor. She untied her leather band that kept her hair away from her face and traced her hand through it. She closed her eyes and took three strands and began to braid, listening to the sounds of the forest.

Something moved beside her--quietly, but there. Immediately she dropped her her hands and picked her bow and arrow, knocking her arrow and aiming it directly at the sound. She snapped her eyes, a boy--or man, she wasn’t sure--stared back at her, his brown eyes thick with fear. She frowned at his cowl, not unlike the ones she saw when she was child.

‘Please don’t shoot me,’ he held his hands before his to show he was unarmed.

Krystal huffed, her breath coming coming heavily out of her nose. She lowered her bow and frowned at him. A little smile flicked on his face. Krystal refused to let a smile break on her face.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Krystal trusts her gut. She'd probably give Halt a run for his money. Gilan is dopey. (Duh)

The moment the second one came out of the trees she knew they were Rangers. Their mottle green grey cloaks gave them away, but the second was short and stocky with a beard that everyone said was the source of Ranger black magic. Krystal had grown out of believing in black magic when she realised they weren’t going to turn up at the foot of her bed.

‘Your stance is a little off,’ the older one critiqued.

‘I’m sitting down.’ She hadn’t expected her response to be so course. 

‘You can’t shoot accurately from a sitting position, you should--’

Krystal grabbed her bow, knocking her arrow again, ‘wanna a bet little man?’

The boy’s eyes widened and looked between the two of them in pure horror. The old man considered her offer for a moment, tapping his finger against his bearded chin. Krystal knew he was going to say no. 

‘Perhaps after we leave this forest.’

‘I’m not leaving until this I have a wolf head to show for it.’

It wasn’t the first time she’d found herself nose to nose with an older member of society, but it was the first time she felt a seed of doubt nestle in her stomach. A part of her wanted to back down, and leave the wolf killing in the hands of the two Rangers.

Maisie, she thought, Maisie would want me to do this. The little girl was terrified of all thing related to the King’s Rangers. Krystal was a little bit responsible for sowing the seed of fear in her.

She dropped her bow and extended her hand in an introductory greeting.

‘I’m Krystal.’

The older man took her hand and shook it. ‘You have some fight in you, don’t you?’

Krystal raised her other hand, positioning her finger and thumb to demonstrate the little bit of fight she had inside of her. The Ranger raised a single eyebrow and Krystal returned the gesture.

‘Not fair!’ the younger one whined defeatedly, ‘I’ve been trying to do that for years.’

‘What, this?’ the two of them said in unison, switching eyebrows. She thought she saw a smile on the old man’s face.

‘Ranger Halt,’ he raised a hand to his chest to introduce himself, then to the younger man, ‘my Apprentice, Gilan.’

Gilan dropped his cowl as he shook Krystal’s hand, she could see he was about her age, maybe a little bit older. She’d heard his name before, but couldn’t quite place where. She scraped her brain for the answer, trying not to give it away on her face.

‘Are you guys here for the wolf?’ Krystal detested obvious small talk, but it was the only way to distract her mind from turning Gilan’s name over and over in her head.

It was obvious the two Rangers detested it too. Krystal let the question drop into the ground, the question answered by their silence. She stood in one fluid motion, not uncrossing her legs--just simply standing--and grabbed her bow and quiver.

‘Well, good luck.’

Her brain was telling her she worked best on her own, almost convincing her that getting up and leaving was the smartest thing to do, but her stomach was pulling her back to the safety of three people fighting one, ginormous, wolf.

‘You’re going to fight this on your own?’ as Gilan stood his cloak rippled around him like water, ‘with that?’ 

‘Well,’ Krystal’s voice was thick with sarcasm, ‘if this wolf really is a werewolf it’ll just be a man, right?’

Gilan and Halt shared a worried look between them, Halt’s shoulders seemed to slump as if he’d lost all respect for her. Krystal rolled her eyes and planted her foot firmly on the leafy undergrowth.

‘I believe in werewolves as much as I believe it’s really black magic keeping you hidden and not those ridiculous cloaks.’ Gilan brushed at his cloak as if to soothe it from the insult. Halt shrugged and nodded in mock approval. ‘So are you both coming, or nah?’ Krystal shuddered at her question and turned her back on them.

Although the pair of them were light footed, Krystal knew they were following her. She could feel it somewhere inside of her gut.


End file.
